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Thursday, March 5, 2009

An Extremely Rambling and Unfocused Discussion on Vampires.

In other words, I'm trying to spark a discussion in the comments section.

Warning, I am completely unfocused and thinking a lot of the up coming Pedicure I have after I get home from work. So read at your own risk.

I was listening to a Cadaver Lab Podcast episode about the Vampires( Oh and if you're reading this. Sam. I feel your Noob pain, man. I am in the same boat). I'll admit, I originally started listening to it because Stac left the guys a rather hilariously perverted message on there. Lets face it, the woman is completely obsessed with her magoo. Really. I mean it. Its actually quite charming. But then I believe most of us are a little preoccupied with our genitals at one time or another. But I digress. This article is about Vampire discussion, not Stac's ax-wound..

Now overall, I'm not a huge vampire lover. I'm a zombie girl. Keep in mind when I am talking zombie or vampire I mean in terms of what appeals to me as an audience not which one would I rather do the horizontal bop with. Because if those were my only choices?Yeah, I'd go celibate. And for some reason each paragraph is going back to sex. I'll stop. I promise. I am, as usual, split focused since I'm writing this at work and trying to give good customer service while thinking of blood suckers. Am I babbling? I'm babbling.

Yet despite that vampires are not my #1 ghoul of choice I still like to see vampires in films and I love it when people play with their mythology. Like zombies, the mythos is broad, sweeping, and can pretty much be adapted to anything if you know how to tweak it the right way. In fact, there was a crazy vampire series Stac, her roomie Bevin, and I put together called Wax Lips where we really did one heck of an overhaul on the standard vampire mythos.

I find that there are three types of vampires in the horror genre. At least there are three types that I know about. We have the animalistic vampires (30 Days of Night, John Carpenter's Vampires), the suave angsty vampires (Interview with a Vampire, Dracula), and the bad ass mother fuckers(Blade, Underworld). While all three have their place in the horror world I tend to lean more towards the animalistic style of vampires. What can I say? I like my vamps mean, bitchy and ruthless. I think 30 Days of Night gives us some of the best vampires ever. Overall I think its an okay film (the graphic novel is better) but talk about ruthless, angry, scary mother fuckers! I love the mouth full of shark like teeth and that they had their own language...now if only they could have casted someone else other than Josh Hartnett as Eben...I mean come on. You're WAY too pretty to be that character, man.

The main reason why the animalistic vampire is the most appealing to me is because its the one I find the most scary. To me, having someone tear into you like a rabid badger is far scarier than someone trying to seduce me...well not completely. You should have seen some of the gems that hit on me at comic con. But still. Like zombies, the looks human, seems human but is definitely NOT human factor in the animalistic vampires is what gives me the creeps.Of course I still have yet to watch Let the Right One In (which hopefully will be my main activity tomorrow since its my day off). So my entire perspective may change after that.

Anyways, Lets start some conversation, shall we?

-What do you like best: Animalistic, Bad Ass, or Angsty vampires?

-What is one of the best combos of the three you've seen on film?

-Any style you hate?

-Any style you love?

-Any films to recommend to me? I'm always looking for new things to watch.

-What vampire cliche's do you hate or love?

-What is your ultimate favorite vamp flick?

-What about Stac's magoo? Actually no..that shouldn't be up for discussion.

Feed my Lust for Knowledge!!! I promise I will respond to your comments...after my pedicure. Promise!

Bonuse Material!Here's some trailers of my Favorite Vamp Films

30 Days of Night. (not as good as the graphic novel though. I'll stand by that)

John Carpenter's Vampires. (Its just a lot of fun and worth Watching JUST for James Woods alone.)

16 comments:

Bevin
said...

I tend to fall in between the cracks of the vampire categories, I guess, since I tend to gravitate toward the vampires that seem more like regular people. I grew up reading "The Vampire Files" and that was my first real impression of what vampires were, so that's what I find most gratifying. It's also probably why I don't read much vampire fiction-- P.N. Elrod and Christopher Moore are about the only ones I read. Not much angst, plenty of humor, and personality traits I can identify with or at least relate to.

As for the options you mentioned, I think I'd probably go with animalistic as a runner-up. The "Nosferatu" thing is interesting to me, really emphasizes the horror and revulsion for these unnatural beings who are, really, just animated corpses who steal life from the living to sustain themselves. Not too different from zombies, really. ;)

Bevin>>You know, I completely forgot about Christopher Moore while writing this! I have to say that Blood Sucking Fiends and You Suck are two of the greatest vampire novels I ever read because they came across as completely regular people. Its not scary but its endearing and entertaining.

And the Nosferatu I kinda put into the Animalistic category in my mind mostly because of the looks human but not human, thing. But you are definitely right in them being creepy and zombie like.:)

In completely unrelated news that will make no sense to anyone, I almost finished watching Sita Sings the Blues. Thanks for posting that link on LJ!

I'm not all that much of a vampire fan, but there's a few movies on the subject that I really love. Those being From Dusk Till Dawn, Let The Right One In (on DVD & Blu this Tuesday!), and Near Dark. So I guess you could say, Dusk Till Dawn aside, I prefer the more tragic vampires who see their vampirism as a curse. I think that's a lot more interesting but of course, I still love to see animalistic vampires tearing mofos apart.

The ultimate be all end all vampire flick for me? It was Near Dark until Let The Right One In came along.

Johnny>> I still have to watch Let the Right One In! I just haven't had enough time to sit down and do so. Stupid busy life.Near Dark I think is one of the best Vampire movies ever made. Mostly because those vampires are completely unforgiving and shameless about what they're doing. I also love that they never once use the word vampire to describe them which I felt made them all the more scary. Its also the best role Bill Paxton ever had. I LOVED him in that movie.

Dusk Till Dawn took some time to grow on me. I really didn't like it the first time I saw it. But after repeat viewings its really starting to grow on me. George Clooney is pretty bad ass in it and I still laugh my ass off at Cheech's speech.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Night Watch yet, do so. I think you'll like it. Its not really a hard core horror film but the visuals are amazing and the story is really unique. Watch it subtitled if you can. The subtitles interact with the film.

Unfortunately, I don't watch a lot of horror/vampire movies. And I don't think my favorite type falls into any of your categories. I mean, yeah, animalistic ones can be scary, and badasses can be scary, and angsty can be ... well, they tend to be whiny bitches most of the time it seems. I prefer the human-looking, sociable, yet completely amoral vampires. They seem to like being vampires. And while they know the difference between right and wrong, they don't care because that sort of morality doesn't apply to them. If they want you, they aren't going to bother with trying to seduce you into it. They'll just rip your throat out and feast. And they know they can do it, but they don't have to if they don't want to.

I think what it comes down to is predictability. The behavior of animalistic vampires can be predicted, because, let's face it, they're animals and have a predictable nature. Bad-ass vampires can be predictable. Same reason. Angsty vampires ... ehhhhh. But human, amoral vampires? Not so much as far as I'm concerned.

So who am I talking about? Since I have such limited knowledge of movies, I have few examples, but I do have a couple:

LaCroix, from the television series Forever Knight. And Eric from the Sookie Stackhouse novels which has been turned into the tv series True Blood. (But since I don't get HBO, I'm going with how he comes off to me in the novels.)

Mycheif>>That is a category I completely left out. Thanks for pointing it out to me! I think the reason I left it out is because I don't see it done often...well I don't see it done well often. I think The Forsaken was trying to put across that style vampire but unfortunately it didn't work they they came off as brain damaged.If you haven't seen it, Check out Near Dark. The vampires in that film are a good cross of animalistic and immoral. I think you'd enjoy it.I have seen a couple episodes of True Blood. Its pretty good! I may try to catch up on it. Don't know a think about Forever Knight. What's that about?

Forever Knight was a too shortly-lived Canadian series. Nicholas Knight was a former knight of the Crusades now Toronto police detective. (He's the angsty type of vampire.) He was "brought across" by LaCroix, a much older vampire who likes being a vampire and plays the amoral type I mentioned. The opening title sequence explains the premise of the show fairly well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPhIEG3JYtg&feature=related

As for True Blood, I've only seen a few episodes myself, and I did enjoy them. But I'm more familiar with the books they're based on.

I would have to agree with you and say the animalistic vampire. Not a fan of Blade, and while I enjoyed Interview With The vampire, angst vampires are too Hot Topic for me. I honestly have yet to see a combo of the three that I liked. The closest was Near Dark and my all time favorite vampire film Fright Night. I hate hate HATE what Twilight has done to the whole notion of vampire. Vampires should not look like they bathed in body glitter and are ready for Studio 54. I hate it with a passion. As for vampire movies I recommend, may I suggest The Hunger.

Roy>>Howdy Roy! Yay, another Near Dark Fan! BEST VAMPIRES EVER!!!As for Twilight, I actually didn't mind it. I saw the movie and while it wasn't my favorite I kinda liked the concepts they were introducing. If you think about it, they made sense. Out of context though, they do sound pretty goofy. It was less glitter and more like their skin looked like marble as if they were made of stone. So that made more sense to me. I think if Twilight focused on that and less on the romance I would have been a bit more into it. But Its not as bad as everyone was saying.Fight Night was actually the first Vampire/Horror film I ever saw. I caught it when I was in Junior High and LOVED it. I think mostly because of Roddy McDowel who was just plain adorable. Its such a fun movie. And I keep forgetting to mention Lost Boys as well. Not really a scary horror film but Has some great memories attached to it and is pretty damn fun as well.

The Hunger stars David Bowie, Catherine DeNuve and Susan Surrandon. It's about a vampire couple, and David Bowie suddenly starts dying. So Denuve goes looking for a new vampire lover....and chooses Surandon, a doctor hired to care for Bowie

I am with you 100% on the Animalistic Vampires![if you like to read, check out Brian Lumley's Necroscope Saga - the best vampire books EVER written!]Also, David Wellington's 13 Bullets series is great as well!

As for movies - you nailed it with Near Dark [and I have to say that I love Lost Boys as well!]Let the Right One In should be in my mailbox, tomorrow. . .

Be sure to check out the Indie film "The Vampire Diaries: Part 1 - Thicker Than Water" [a very realistic vampire movie - my current favorite! You can read my review on my blog] It's currently seeking distribution, but there is a film festival site that is playing it for free right now - I can't remember the site off-hand and Big Bang Theory is about to come on - if I remember, I'll get back to you! :-)

Hmm. I think I'm going to have to go with the angsty vampire. If only because I'm a sucker for psychological horror, which is what they're really going for. The terror behind the mask. A creature that isn't human, pretending to be human (or if you're going really angsty, wants to be human again).

The problem is that most stories end with the vampire either dying or becoming human again. I like the rare ones where the vampire finally accepts that they aren't human and begins to determine what that means (does it mean they can feed on everyone anytime they want? Do they have different morals now? What are their limits?)

Next up is bad ass. But only for fun factor. You can't be scared of a bad ass vampire, unless that bad ass vampire is the main villain I suppose.

Animalistic as a full fledged character personality isn't appealing to me. Why does it need to look vaguely human then? Why can't it be a werewolf that has a pension for drinking blood? Now if there is a switch of some kind, an "anamialistic tendancy"